CMOS device performance is affected, often critically, by dimension control of the device's gate length. A manufacturable gate definition process includes both gate patterning and etching. For example, while it is generally desirable to use as little polysilicon as possible in the formation of the gates of RF CMOS devices, the typical polysilicon etch process used in the formation of such CMOS devices requires the use of more polysilicon than is desired for these gates.
That is, gate etching is sensitive to the “micro-loading” effect. Micro-loading is usually defined as the utilization of the chip area between the gate and the chip. Micro-loading is generally not a concern for typical LSI circuits which have ratios of 10% or more of gate area to total chip area. However, for certain types of applications, such as RF switches, which demand both extremely high performance and a limited gate area, a significant adjustment of the gate etch chemistry or bias condition is usually exploited because of the need for a low gate area.
The present invention permits the use of conventional gate etch processes by placing polysilicon pads underneath probe pads during chip layout. Accordingly, the overall ratio of polysilicon to chip area can be increased so that conventional gate etching processes can be used, while the ratio of gate polysilicon to chip area can be kept small for better device operation. In addition, by increasing the polysilicon area in the chip layout, the gate etch process margin for deep sub-micron applications is improved.